Atlanta Braves at Los Angeles Dodgers Preview: Alex Wood vs. Zack Greinke

The Atlanta Braves dropped their first game to the Los Angeles Dodgers yesterday 8-4, and tonight they’ll face an even tougher challenge on the mound in Zack Greinke. The good news is that the Braves have a solid pitcher of their own heading to the mound in lefty Alex Wood.

The Pitching Matchup:

Wood has been solid for Atlanta all year long, but comes into this game with a few ugly starts in the rearview mirror. He gave up four runs in 5.1 innings against the Padres in his last start, and 14 days before that gave up four runs in 5.1 innings to the Cubs. Maybe he just needs some better competition to get him dialed in? Well, the Dodgers are certainly better than San Diego and Chicago, so Greinke will need to look a bit better tonight. He’s got a 3.44 ERA, 3.34 FIP and 3.24 xFIP on the season to go along with an 8.75 K/9 and 2.23 BB/9.

Greinke has long been one of my favorite pitchers in the game, but I can honestly say that I’m not happy to see that he’ll be throwing tonight. This year, he’s arguably been at his all-time best with a 9.59 K/9 that’s quite a bit better than his career mark and a 1.92 BB/9 mark that’s lower than any season except 2004. With 131.1 innings under his belt with the Dodgers and their electric staff, Greinke has posted a 2.74 ERA, 2.97 FIP and 2.73 xFIP.

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The Particulars:

Date: July 30, 2014

Start Time: 10:10 pm ET

TV Channel: SportSouth, MLB Network (National)

Radio: 680 AM/106.7 FM (Local in Atlanta), Full list of Local Affiliates

Live Stream: MLB.tv (Click Here, $)

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The Predictions:

Both myself and fellow Editor Brad Rowland hit our picks last night when we took Josh Beckett and the Dodgers. Tonight though, we’ll be going different directions since the first time we made picks. Brad is siding with Alex Wood, thinking that he “steps up and dominates” and I’m going to go with Greinke because “he always dominates.”

Here’s what our records look like at the moment:

• Carlos: 3-1
• Brad: 2-2

Brad could get back into the game with this pick… or I could start to leave him in the dust.

Please feel free to sound off in the comments with your predictions for the game and feel free to rub it in our faces when you beat us on twitter (@ATLBeatBlog).